


Yolka

by Garonne



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Year's Eve marks the end of a difficult week for Napoleon and Illya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yolka

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparky955](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparky955/gifts).



> Many thanks to Elijahwildchild for beta-reading.
> 
> Sparky955's prompts and tags were: emotional hurt/comfort, established relationship, happy ending, cold rain, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. Hope you'll like it!
> 
> Reading this fic, it probably helps to know that in Russia, particularly in Soviet times, the big holiday was New Year and not Christmas.

.. .. ..

Illya returned from his quick sweep of Napoleon's bedroom and bathroom, and stepped back into the living room to find Napoleon setting the last of the alarms on the door.

"All clear?" Napoleon asked.

Illya nodded. Then with two quick steps each, they met in the middle of the room. 

Napoleon was warm and solid in Illya's arms. He felt Napoleon's own arms go round him in turn. Not caressing, just gripping tightly. Illya understood the impulse. He himself could not quite manage to believe that Napoleon was still alive. He buried his nose in the crook of Napoleon's shoulder, breathing in the smell of sweat and warm skin.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Finally, Napoleon grasped Illya's face in his hands and gave him a long, bruising kiss, before they stepped away from each other.

Napoleon took a deep breath.

"Hungry?" he asked, his voice coming out almost normal. "I think I have some lasagna in the freezer." 

Illya went to switch on the oven. Napoleon didn't follow him into the kitchen, so he also took out the lasagna, and slid it onto the middle tray. His arms and wrists ached just with the weight of the ceramic dish. He'd spent most of the week with them handcuffed behind his back at an awkward angle. Or sometimes dangling from them, when his captor had decided he wanted to play with his Christmas presents. Illya had hardly noticed the pain at the time. That had been while he thought Napoleon was dead. 

He shook off the chill feeling that thought brought with it and turned to get plates and cutlery. Napoleon was alive, and there was no point dwelling on the past. 

He came back into the living room to find Napoleon still standing in the middle of the room where he left him. He was staring at the Christmas tree. 

It was a real one, about two foot high, on top of a cabinet. Napoleon had decorated it with red and silver baubles, and strings of silver bells. Illya had been roped into the effort, despite his initial resistance. He had to admit the end result was striking. He'd seen Napoleon's Christmas tree every year since they'd first worked together, of course, but he'd always assumed Napoleon bought it off the shelf in a department store, already decorated. This was the first time he'd been involved in its decoration.

"It's no fun to do it alone," Napoleon had said, when Illya arrived one evening earlier in December to find the bare pine tree on Napoleon's coffee table. 

"No, I expect you've always had plenty of volunteers from the secretarial pool," Illya said dryly. "If I'd known agreeing to the exchange of sexual favours also meant home decorating, I might have had second thoughts."

"And if I'd known you were so enthusiastic about the idea, I'd have asked you years ago." 

"About the tree?" 

Napoleon had shot him a wicked grin. 

"Oh, both, I think."

Then he'd kissed Illya, and handed him a tangled string of silver bells.

Now, Napoleon stood looking at the tree. The expression on his face was difficult to interpret. Illya could see lines of stress around his eyes, and his jaw was set.

"I kept thinking about this," Napoleon said quietly. "All the while I was in that prison cell and thought you were dead. Kept thinking I'd come home and see the tree, and remember us putting it up together, and know you weren't ever coming back." 

Illya shot him a puzzled look. Napoleon was breaking their unspoken rule.

"Get the glasses, Napoleon. And something to drink. Not alcohol. Your pain killers are too strong for that. " 

"So are yours," Napoleon retorted. He turned, shooting Illya a mock-stern look. "And don't think you'll be getting away with not taking them." 

Illya snorted, relieved that Napoleon seemed to be shaking off his odd mood. He laid the table quickly, and then dropped onto the sofa, closing his eyes and just letting himself relax. 

It was warm and comfortable here, and Napoleon was with him. Soon they'd have dinner and then retire together to Napoleon's big soft bed. What more could he ask for?

He heard the clunk of glasses hitting the tablecloth, and then felt the sofa dip as Napoleon sat down beside him. He reached out blindly, and his hand fell on Napoleon's thigh, warm and solid. He felt Napoleon's arm slip around his shoulders.

"It's New Year's Eve," Napoleon said after a minute, sounding surprised. "I'd forgotten."

Illya made a tiny sound of acknowledgement. 

"How long were we in that maniac's hideaway, then?" Napoleon went on. "Exactly a week?"

They'd been kidnapped on Christmas Eve, walking down a quiet side street near UNCLE HQ, on their way to collect Napoleon's aunt's Christmas turkey. The man had been tracking them for weeks, as they learned later, ever since they'd put a stop to his sideline in counterfeit leather goods. They hadn't even done it on purpose; it had just been a side-effect of a larger blow struck against THRUSH. But the man had taken it very personally indeed.

A whole week, Illya thought. A week he'd spent believing Napoleon was dead. He'd been trying not to think about it, but Napoleon kept bringing the subject up. 

Illya remembered lying in an open field behind the maniac's mansion, somewhere on the north-west coast. The cold rain on his face had woken him, and he'd lain there for a few seconds, dazed. Understanding dawned slowly. Their escape attempt must have gone wrong. Now he remembered the guards catching up with them. A grenade had been thrown and exploded somewhere very close to him. Those same guards were bending over him now, dragging him roughly to his feet. He couldn't have been unconscious for more than half a minute at most. 

That was when he turned his head and saw the huge smoking crater where Napoleon had been.

On the sofa, Napoleon stirred, bringing Illya back to the present. He felt Napoleon's breath on his ear, and then a kiss on his cheek.

"I'm going to go check on dinner," Napoleon said, and the warmth at Illya's side vanished.

Before they sat down to eat, Napoleon plugged in the lights on the tree, and switched off all the other lamps in the room. Now the tree was an outline of brightly glowing dots of gold in the dark, casting the rest of the room in soft shadows and patches of warm golden light.

"It's a New Year's tree too," Napoleon said, sitting back down. " _Novogodnaya yolka_."

Illya blinked.

"Where did you pick that up?"

"An Easy Russian Reader, part two."

"Ah."

Illya tried to hide a smile, but Napoleon caught it anyway, and returned it.

"I meant to ask you round tonight, in fact. I was planning to visit that grocer's on 72nd Street, the one where you always go for herring and pickles."

"The Belorussians?" Illya knew it well.

"But it didn't quite work out that way." Napoleon looked down ruefully at his plate. "I don't suppose lasagna is eaten very often in Russia on New Year's Eve?"

Illya didn't care. He went on eating steadily, a warm feeling in his insides that had nothing to do with the food.

After dinner they left the dishes in the sink for the next day, and quickly got ready for bed.

Sitting on the bed, in the middle of pulling his shoes off, Illya looked up for a moment at Napoleon. It was very quiet in the room, and he watched Napoleon unbuttoning his cuffs. Only the lamp beside the bed was lit, and Napoleon's face was softened in the shadows as he crossed to room to his dresser.

Illya was hit by a sudden wave of melancholy. He had an irrational desire to capture this moment in time, this quiet intimacy, fleeting as it was.

Napoleon turned away from the dresser, his attention presumably drawn by Illya's sudden stillness. He caught Illya's eye.

"What's the matter?"

Illya shrugged.

"You've put me in a funny mood. That business with the tree -- "

"You didn't like it being a New Year's tree?" 

Napoleon sounded mystified, and a little hurt.

"No, I meant earlier."

He could still see Napoleon in his mind's eye, standing alone in the middle of the room, staring at the tree. For a moment, Illya had felt like a ghost.

He shrugged again.

"It was a long week."

"It's over now," Napoleon said quietly. "And it all turned out to be just a dream -- "

"A nightmare, you mean."

"I mean it wasn't real. We're both still here." He came closer to Illya. "We can't dwell on it, Illya. We'll go crazy."

"I know that. You were the one who kept -- " He broke off. This wasn't something you could be logical about.

He remembered the first time he'd kissed Napoleon, standing in the rain on a rooftop in Copenhagen. Even then he'd known he couldn't ever give Napoleon up. No more than he could stop being an UNCLE agent.

"We promised ourselves this wouldn't changed anything."

"It hasn't. I already loved you just as much then as I do now." Napoleon said it quite matter-of-factly.

Illya swallowed, his heart doing something unexpected and inexplicable in his chest.

"Come here," he said, holding out his hand.

He pulled Napoleon down onto the bed with him, where he could kiss him thoroughly.

"I did like the New Year's tree," he admitted, when finally he drew back far enough to see Napoleon's face.

Napoleon looked suitably smug.

"Next year we'll have champagne and caviar. And every year afterwards too."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Illya said, but he couldn't surpress a smile at the thought. He drew Napoleon in for another kiss.

They were already in bed when the clock on Napoleon's dresser struck midnight, and outside, the first salvo of fireworks shot up past the window.

*** End ***


End file.
